- Brick, 26, is an Indonesian who will be beaten nine times for trying to enter Singapore illegally.
- It was the fifth time he had tried to sneak into the country, local media reported, citing authorities.
- Caning is a legal sanction in Singapore that can be imposed on offenders under the age of 50.
A 26-year-old Indonesian man was sentenced to 18 months in prison and nine strokes of the cane in Singapore for illegally swimming into the island nation, local media reported.
Singaporean media outlet Channel News Asia identified the man by just one name – Brick – and reported that he approached Singapore on a small boat called a sampan in June 2023.
The boat departed from Batam, an Indonesian island about eight miles south of Singapore, and Brick then jumped into the water and swam to shore, CNA reported, citing details provided at his sentencing.
This was Brick’s fifth illegal entry into Singapore since 2017, with his previous offenses earning him a total of 25 strokes of the cane and 50 months in prison, according to CNA. Taking into account his last conviction, the total amounts to 34 strokes of the cane and 68 months in prison.
Local immigration authorities arrested Brick in March and said in court that he did not have travel documents proving he entered the country legally, according to CNA. This means he spent around nine months living illegally in Singapore.
In court, Brick asked for leniency in Indonesian because he “worked for my family and my mother is currently ill,” according to the outlet.
But a presiding judge said Brick’s repeated offenses required a harsher sentence, CNA reported.
The Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, which prosecuted Brick’s case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider. The Indonesian Embassy in Singapore also did not immediately respond to a similar request.
Judicial caning is a form of corporal punishment in Singapore that can be inflicted on criminal offenders who are male and under the age of 50. The punishment is often combined with a prison sentence and carried out by trained personnel with a special rattan cane of approximately four feet. long.
Staff are trained to beat the offender’s bare buttocks, and the whippings are said to be extremely painful and sometimes leave scars. An offender can receive a maximum of 24 strokes per trial.
The practice of caning in Singapore is controversial and gained international attention in 1994, when Michael Fay, a 19-year-old American citizen, was caned six times for vandalism. Fay later said local police forced him to confess to spray-painting cars, a claim the Singapore government denied.
Defenders of caning say it acts as both a deterrent and a way to make offenders think twice before repeating their crimes. In 2022, Halimah Yaacob, then President of Singapore, said that regulations on caning should be reviewed, as rapists in serious cases were spared the rod because they were over 50 years old.
Singapore also has a strict death penalty for those suspected of trafficking controlled substances such as marijuana or methamphetamine.
businessinsider
